CNNMoney: Dow plunges after S&P downgrade
Wall Street had its worst day since the 2008 financial crisis, as fearful investors reacted to the United States losing its coveted AAA credit rating. All three major U.S. stock indexes sank between 5% and 7%, pushing the Dow below 11,000 for the first time since last November.

CNN: Boehner and Pelosi end House page program
House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Monday they are ending the House page program, which employs about 70 high school age students each semester and summer to study in Washington and serve as messengers around the Capitol complex.

CNN: Slain U.S. service members from downed copter due to arrive in U.S.
The remains of the 38 U.S. and Afghan personnel, killed on board a helicopter shot down over the weekend, are expected to arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Tuesday. Because the catastrophic nature of the crash made the remains difficult to identify, all 38 sets are being taken to the United States.

CNN: Hotel housekeeper sues alleged attacker Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Hotel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo filed a civil lawsuit Monday against her alleged attacker Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The former head of the International Monetary Fund stands indicted on charges that he sexually assaulted Diallo in his luxury New York City hotel suite in May.

CNN: Judge rules Memphis city schools to merge with county
Public schools in Memphis, Tennessee, will be consolidated with those of the surrounding county beginning in 2013-14, a federal judge ruled Monday. The decision ends for now a year long fight over funding that spilled into questions of race and politics.

CNN: U.S. joins suit to recover funds from for-profit education firm
The Justice Department joined a whistle-blower and several state governments Monday in filing suit against a for-profit educational firm that has received more than $11 billion in federal student aid. The government joined the suit against Education Management Corp. (EDMC), which has enrolled thousands of students in dozens of educational programs across the U.S.

CNN: Mayor puts Philadelphia youngsters on tight curfew after attacks
Police in Philadelphia will enforce a strict curfew on minors after mobs of violent young people attacked strangers in several instances. Mayor Michael Nutter unveiled the city's plan Monday, saying that children under 13 must be home by 10 p.m. and teens between 13 and 18 by midnight.

CNN: Activists: Arbitrary arrests, heavy gunfire rattle two parts of Syria
Heavy gunfire shattered the morning air across Syria on Tuesday as the number of casualties in the country continued to soar, activist groups said. Security forces arbitrarily arrested residents in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor as heavy shooting broke out, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.

CNN: Hope and horror at world's largest refugee camp
Humphry Musyoka, a doctor at the world's largest refugee camp, knows well how quickly dehydration can ravage the body of a child. A young girl who seems OK one minute can turn on a dime. But Musyoka, who works at the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya, says he has no time to think about loss.

New York Times: Japan Held Nuclear Data, Leaving Evacuees in Peril
In interviews and public statements, some current and former government officials have admitted that Japanese authorities engaged in a pattern of withholding damaging information and denying facts of the nuclear disaster — in order, some of them said, to limit the size of costly and disruptive evacuations in land-scarce Japan and to avoid public questioning of the politically powerful nuclear industry.

CNNMoney: Bank of America stock plunges 20%
Bank of America shares plunged 20% Monday, fueled in part by a steep selloff in the broader market and news that insurer American International Group is suing it for billions of dollars over alleged mortgage securities fraud.

CNNMoney: Gold surges as investors seek safety
Gold surged to a new record on Monday, boosted by global market uncertainty in the wake of Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt. Gold hit an intraday record of $1,718.02 per ounce - its first time above $1,700, when not adjusted for inflation.

CNNMoney: Take that, S&P! Rates on Treasuries stay low
For the first time in history, the United States no longer deserves its cherished AAA-status - at least according to Standard & Poor's. So are investors dumping their Treasuries? Far from it. In fact, investors rushed to buy Treasuries on Monday, the first day investors could react to Standard & Poor's downgrade.